Today I continue our series “Pop Verses.” We are taking a closer look at some of the most popular Bible verses. We are going to find out why they are so popular and how they apply to our lives.
What you might discover is that some of these verses don’t mean what you think they mean or they mean a lot more than you think they mean. You see, quite often our favorites verses are just that – they’re verses. They’re not read in light of the passage in which they appear. This can lead to a misunderstanding about the true meaning of the verse. I believe this series is going to give you a lot of food for thought about these popular verses.
Today we are going to zero in on a verse of scripture that is very appropriate for us right now given the horrific events in Orlando last week: Romans 8:28. Let’s take a look at it:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. –Romans 8:28
This is probably one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. It is also one of the most misused and abused verses of the Bible. Some people read this verse and interpret it to mean, “Everything happens for a reason.” “God has caused all things to happen for a good reason.”
I preached on this subject about a year ago. In the wake of the Orlando shooting I received calls this week requesting that I address it again. Social media has been covered in bad theology in response to the horrific event in Orlando. This platitude has reared its ugly head again.
Quite often this platitude is said in the context of difficulty or adversity. We get bad news. We are disappointed. Life takes a bad turn and we have a well meaning friend say to us, “Everything happens for a reason.” Sometimes it comes in other forms: “God must be testing you” or “It must be God’s will” or “Things don’t happen to you; they happen for you.”
All of these religious phrases often come out of a misunderstanding of Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good…” Many interpret this verse to mean that all suffering is God’s will.
Do we really believe that God has orchestrated all the pain and tragedy in our lives? Do we really believe that when a baby dies “God needed another angel in heaven?” Do we really believe that God plotted 9/11 for a purpose like testing our country? Do we really believe that the Orlando shooting was the will of God? Or what about the child that was attacked by an alligator at Disney. And the pop singer that shot in Orlando? Are all those events the will of God? Does God have a vendetta against Orlando? And if this is true, what does it say about the God we believe in?
Westboro Baptist Church believes in that kind of God. This is a church known for its hate, not for its love. I guess they missed that part of the Bible. I wonder if they have ever heard of Jesus Christ. Their website says that God sent the shooter to Orlando to kill homosexuals and those in the LGBT community. Their site also claims that it was the will of God that the poor child at Disney be attacked by an alligator! This weekend they picketed the funerals of the 49 victims with signs that say, “God hates homosexuals.” To Westboro Baptist Church Romans 8:28 means that the shooting happened for a reason. O Lord, save us from some of your followers!
I recall doing a funeral for a man in another church I served. After the funeral I attended a reception at the family’s home. I was having refreshments in the living room with some of the family of the deceased. Sitting next to me was a middle aged woman who was a member of the family. I didn’t know her. I had just met her that day. She was a very honest person. She looked at me and said, “I’m not a big fan of ministers.” I smiled and said, “I get it. I’m not always a big fan of ministers either. A lot of folks have trouble with ministers for very good reasons!” I asked, “So, why do you have issues with ministers?”
I was not prepared for what she said. Under normal circumstances I don’t think she would have been so forthcoming but grief can instill liberating honesty. She said, “When I was in my twenty’s my mother died of cancer. It was devastating because I was very close with my mother. At the time I had a friend who was a strong Christian tell me that “everything happens for a reason.” She said that I needed to accept this as God’s will and move on. When she said that I decided I would never have anything to do with God, religion or the church.”
I did my best to explain to her how wrong and insensitive her friend’s remarks were but the spiritual damage had been done. Did her friend have good intentions? Sure. Was she just trying to be comforting? Sure. But the religious platitude presented God as someone who planned that tragedy in her life and she wanted nothing to do with a God like that. Can you blame her?
Martin Thielen reminds us that “God often gets blamed for things that God did not do!” We have all heard the language. Thielen notes, “A baby dies and someone says, ‘God needed another angel in heaven.’ A young mother dies of breast cancer leaving a husband and two kids behind and someone says, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ A 50 year old overworks his whole life, doesn’t take care of himself, and dies of a heart attack and someone says, ‘The Lord knows best.’ A group of teenagers on their way to prom are killed in a car accident and someone says, ‘God must have had a purpose.’” What? In other words, “Everything happens for a reason.” And now we have misguided people spreading the lunacy that the Orlando shooting was the will of God.
It is beyond me how some folks who read the same Bible I do and follow the same Christ that I follow can believe that God would orchestrate unspeakable tragedy and pain in life. It is beyond me how some folks believe that the same God who personified himself in Christ and put little children on his knee would kill children with cancer, kill teenagers through car accidents, and wipe out families with tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes. It is beyond me.
Folks, everything does not happen for a reason, at least not in the way people usually mean that phrase. The God I know and love would not plot and plan suffering and tragedy. Sometimes things happen because of the foolishness of others. Sometimes things happen because of our own bad choices. Sometimes things happen because we live in an evil and imperfect world. But let’s not blame tragedy and suffering on God.
When God created us He gave us free will. He loves us enough to allow us to choose to love Him back. Otherwise, we would be a bunch of robots programmed to love and there is really no such thing as forced love. If God took away our freedom to do bad he would also be taking away our freedom to do good. The shadow side to a world with free will is that there is room for bad choices, mistakes, bad timing and decisions, all of which can cause pain, difficulty, frustration, tragedy and adversity. But when bad things happen it doesn’t mean God caused them to happen.
In fact, Jesus himself dispelled this misguided belief in the gospel of Luke. In the 13th chapter Jesus references a construction tragedy that killed 18 laborers. Many people in Jesus’ day assumed that God caused the accident to punish the laborers for their sins. Jesus completely rejected the idea. This is what Jesus said in verse 4, “Those eighteen who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you – no!”
There it is – straight from the Bible! And I know that many of you need that reassurance because for too long you have heard Christians blame catastrophes on God. For too long many of you have been heart by people who say in the midst of your pain, “Everything happens for a reason.” In this text Jesus said, “No!”
Of course, the big question is if not everything happens for a reason, if God is not behind my tragedy and difficulty, then how do I deal with it? How do I make sense of it? If so much of the pain I experience in life is based on the free will of others and the free will of the world, then how am I to be prepared for it when it comes? How am I supposed to handle it? Where is God when it hurts? Where is God when planes crash and earthquakes come and people die in car accidents? Where is God when people are shot and killed at a night club 90 minutes from here? Where is God and is he involved at all?
And if Romans 8:28 does not mean that everything happens for a reason, then what does it mean? How do we make sense of this verse?
I want us to take a closer look at the verse and its context. As we do, I believe we will receive some answers we are so desperate for. Like many popular verses of scripture, this one is misunderstood because it is taken out of context.
The passage appears in the book of Romans. In Romans Paul is addressing a group of Christians who are familiar with adversity. They have been persecuted for their faith in every imaginable way. They have also dealt with the disappointments of life that all of us share. Paul helps them make sense of their suffering by articulating where God is in all of it.
In chapter eight Paul encourages the Roman Christians in their suffering by reminding them that there will come a day when there will be no more suffering. When Christ comes again everything in this world will be renewed and healed. Paul tells us that creation groans “with labor pains” for this day of ultimate renewal and healing. Paul acknowledges suffering not as God’s will but as a fact of life. But he said we wait with hope that one day by the grace and power of God all suffering in the world will cease. We pick up Paul’s encouraging words in verse 26 of Romans 8 as he begins to speak of our prayer life in the midst of suffering:
…The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. –Romans 8:26-27
Paul is saying that when we are weak and suffering and life is turned upside down, we don’t know what to pray for. We are not God. Life is crazy sometimes and we don’t always know how to pray. Sometimes a sigh is all we can get out! And I understand that! Most of my prayers this week have been sighs. How about you? But the great thing Paul says is that God knows what we need. The Holy Spirit within us senses our yearnings at the deepest level and lifts up our prayers to God. It is then that Paul gives our pop verse:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. –Romans 8:28
What Paul is saying is that “I know you are suffering and nothing makes sense, and even your prayers don’t make sense. But know this: God knows what you need. And, more than that, God is going to work something good out of this. He is going to take this awful thing and do something extraordinary with it. He is going to take what is ugly and make it beautiful.” How do I know? How do we know this is what Paul means? Take a look at what Paul says a few verses later:
…In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. –Romans 8:37
God makes you a conqueror over things that are against you, right? If suffering is the will of God, why would God give you strength to conquer it! That wouldn’t make sense. By God’s power we are more than conquerors through suffering in life. But what does it mean to be “more than a conqueror?” Take a look:
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 8:38-39
For Paul being more than a conqueror means we are always equipped the powerful, sustaining and transforming love of God. This means that no matter how dark your life gets, no matter how painful or disappointing life becomes, God’s love will always be there to sustain you and empower you. You can handle anything in life because God is always with you!
Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, whatever pain you are in, God carries your sorrows. He shares it with you. He cries with you. He aches with you. He loves you too much for you to deal with it alone. You see, Jesus’ death tells us that when we suffer, God suffers with us. That is what the cross and resurrection is all about – God suffers when we suffer and he has the power to redeem our suffering.
That’s what Paul meant when he said we are “more than conquerors.” You see, God is not only with us in the midst of our pain, he not only helps us carry our pain, he not only helps us get through it, but helps us to be more than conquerors! How is that possible? How can we more than conquer our pain, difficulty and adversity? Here is the answer:
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. –Romans 8:28
This means that suffering and tragedy is never God’s will but God can take what is ugly in our lives and make it beautiful. That is what makes us more than conquerors. So here is today’s message. Here is one way to look at Romans 8:28:
Everything that happens to you is not God’s will but God has a will in everything that happens to you.
God has a will to turn your trouble into triumph. That is the story of the Bible. God is in the transformation business. When evil attacks with difficulty, God transforms it in a way that brings Him glory. When evil attacks with pain, God uses it to build character. When evil gives resistance, God uses it to build strength. When evil attacks with death God bring life. What life throws at you is not God’s will, but God can take your difficulty and do productive things with it.
You can walk in confidence in the Lord. You can say, “I don’t know what this day is going to bring, but I know that God will bring me through it. I know that there is nothing I am going to face that God and I can’t handle. I know by the power of God I will be more than a conqueror!”
God can take what is ugly and make it beautiful. And haven’t we seen this over and over again the past week? Did you see the amount of people lined up last week to give blood? All around the world there have been prayer vigils for the victims in Orlando. People with different political and theological views have together saying, “Love is stronger than hate!”
A group of staff and volunteers from Orlando Shakespeare Theater as well as the Orlando arts community will work together to build "Angel Wings" to block Westboro Baptist Church members protesting the funerals of the Orlando shooting victims. When finished, they will look like this (photo). Sometimes being a Christian means shining the light of justice and defending the weak and vulnerable. Here in one of my favorite pictures that has come out of this mess (photo of a black hand holding a white hand). All races have come together this week. If there is one thing this tragedy has reminded us of it is that we are all children of God. We are all part of the family of God. “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”
This week at Annual Conference in Orlando we held a prayer vigil outside our hotel (photo). Our own Bishop Carter proclaimed a powerful word. He said the victims when to “Pulse” looking for acceptance and love. Why can’t the church be a place of love and acceptance? What if people who were marginalized came to our churches and experienced the love and acceptance they crave. What a concept!
This last picture is of a prayer vigil held in the city of Orlando this week. Look at all those people! Protestants, Catholics, Jews, black, white, conservative and liberal coming together to reflect that light shines in the darkness, which the darkness can never overcome. Folks, that is a picture of the Kingdom of God. This week has taught us that by God’ love and power we can be more than conquerors. Everything is not God’s will, but God has a will in everything. Amen.